The Best RTD Cocktail Can On The Market — By Far

Since getting back into retail, I’ve not only tasted endless variations of cocktails in a can, I’ve been forced to market countless new brands that seem to be multiplying faster than rabbits on ecstasy.

The RTD (ready to drink) segment of the spirits market has been one of the fastest growing sectors of our business during the pandemic, but it’s also the most saturated and bloated, in my opinion. There are too many brands, taking too much marketshare, marking it impossible for customers to focus on any one thing.

Granted, I’m also not the ideal RTD customer. I make drinks at home, I’m not partying on a boat or in the park, and I’m not sneaking booze into the movie theater while the Delta variant is still around. That being said, I have finally found what I think is the perfect canned cocktail, and I’ve been drinking the shit out of it for the last two weeks: the Ranch Rider variety pack.

Out of Austin, Texas, this group has managed to create the perfect highball in a can. The Ranch Water is just Tequila, lime, soda water, and sea salt—nothing else. The Chilton is simply vodka, lemon, soda water, and sea salt—nothing else. The Paloma is just the Ranch Water with grapefruit and orange added. They only have 119 calories per can, so you can drink three of them and still watch your figure. And because I’m not ingesting much sugar, I can still hit the treadmill in the morning without a hitch.

Plus, they taste really, really good.

I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing one bit. I took an entire cooler full of Ranch Rider to Modesto this past weekend and had a family BBQ in my parents’ backyard by the pool. Everyone was getting in on the Ranch Rider action, and everyone was loving it.

More importantly, Ranch Rider is serving a purpose: it’s giving people like me an alternative to hard seltzer that’s actually exciting. I look forward to drinking Ranch Rider. I don’t see it as a boring alternative or diet drink, whatsoever.

Rock on!

-David Driscoll

New Aguas Del Sol

Berta Vasquez was born into a mezcal family, but she was not raised to be a mezcalera. Her grandparents made mezcal, as did her parents, as did her late husband and late son. But when Berta’s husband tragically passed away, and she was left alone with four kids, she had to take matters into her own hands. Working with her then-sixteen year old son, she was thrust into the world of distillation, forced to take everything she had observed over her life and put it into practice.

Berta’s story is legendary in the agave world, as is her mezcal. Now in her mid-sixties, she continues to distill in San Balthazar Chichicapam at the palenque she started with her son Torito. Having tasted more than a handful of her spirits, from a variety of different labels, I’m at the point where I specifically seek out her distillates and treasure every sip. Hence, when Bad Hombre Imports told me they had a new batch of tobalá from Berta under the Agua del Sol label, I took everything they had on hand.

The best part? They now have it in 750ml and 200ml bottles, so those of you who don’t yet want to spend $100+ on a bottle of mezcal can try Berta’s elixir for a less intimidating fee of entry. This one is sweetly-spiced, borderline Tequila-esque, with no rough edges and minimal to no smoke. It’s elegant and stunning from front to back.

Also in 200ml is the simply magical bicuishe from Mucario Rios Altamirano from Miahuatlán. The aromas that come off of this are absolutely unreal, gobs of tropical fruit and spicy pepper, with a unique balance of weight and punch across the palate.

It’s nice to have such unique spirits in a more snackable format.

-David Driscoll

The Michael Scott Paper Company

During the fifth season of The Office, (spoiler alert) Steve Carell’s character Michael Scott decides to quit as regional manager of Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch, and starts his own rival paper company, called simply: the Michael Scott Paper Company.

To keep things short and simple for those of you who have never seen the show, all Michael really does is purchase paper from the same suppliers as Dunder-Mifflin, then sell directly to his old Dunder-Mifflin customers for a lower price. The problem is there’s no profit margin in his model. He’s able to steal the business, but not enough of it to sustain the costs of running his new company.

Over time, however, the dent Michael is able to make in Dunder-Mifflin’s business is substantial enough for them to offer a buyout. By absorbing the Michael Scott Paper Company into Dunder-Mifflin, they get their old customers back and eliminate the competition (plus, Michael gets his old job back). In summary, Michael created nothing new with the Michael Scott Paper Company, but he created enough chaos to be annoying to larger competitors.

This same business model has become ubiquitous in the booze business, where small spirits companies have little chance of a long-term play, but can do enough damage in the short term to throw up a Hail Mary and pray for a buyout. With so many micro-brands entering the market with such short bursts of energy, it’s like a sky full of supernovas—each exploding quickly, then fizzling out before the next one explodes minutes later.

It’s an interesting time. I’m just wondering: who’s actually going to be in business two years from now?

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Repost: Clay Pot Mezcal Distillation With Tio Pesca

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Of all the people working in our industry right now, the mezcaleros are by far the most passionate about what they’re doing. They’re combining the intricacies of terroir—geeking out about specific varietals of agave, where they grow, what the weather is like, what the soils are composed of—with the endless variants of distillation: still type, fermentation times, cooking styles, etc.

I got into all that yesterday evening with Juan Carlos Gonzalez from Tio Pesca mezcal. We took a deep dive into clay pot distillation, given that all the Tio Pesca expressions are clay pot-distilled.

And there’s even a 10% off coupon code buried into the conversation if you listen through. It gives you 10% off any product imported by Bad Hombre that we carry, so don’t snooze on that either!

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Tonight With Tio Pesca Mezcal

Today at 4 PM, I’ll be sitting down with Juan Carlos, proprietor of Tio Pesca, Agua del Sol, and Aprendiz mezcales—by far, the best price-to-quality performers we carry right now at Mission.

No agave book has excited our palates and stimulated our senses like this one, so I’m looking forward to digging deeper into the specifics of clay pot distillation this afternoon.

Join us at the @missionliquor site!

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Repost: Talking Laundry and Alcohol With Patric Richardson

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Patric Richardson is my new favorite person in the world right now; hence, it was incredible to get thirty minutes with him on Instagram yesterday.

If you don’t have Patric’s book, you will in a matter of time. Unless you never wash your clothes, that is. No single course of education has ever transformed my life for the better in so short a period of time. There’s always a video out there that shows you an easier way to do something you’ve been doing wrong for years, but this book is like that video on steroids. Pretty much everyone is doing their laundry completely wrong, and Patric shows you why that is and how to do it better.

Patric’s book and everything in it are available at his Laundry Evangelist website, and I can promise you that you’ll never look at vodka the same way again once you get it.

If you go out all night drinking Bourbon and smoking cigars, it’s the vodka that will save you from smelling like a sailor. Read the book.

-David Driscoll

Rosebank Reborn

When I first started getting serious about single malt whisky, I was 28 years old and I was told by my various mentors at the time to buy as many bottles as I could afford from three distilleries in particular: Port Ellen, Brora, and Rosebank.

Back then, the prices for these silent distilleries were nothing to sneeze at, but they were a fraction of what you see on the market today.

If you’re new to single malt yourself, the reason this divine trinity drew—and continues to draw—such fanfare is because up until very recently these distilleries had been closed for many decades; Port Ellen and Brora shutdown in 1983, and Rosebank a decade later.

Of all the ghost whiskies still available in bottle, Port Ellen was the most coveted by far. It’s a peated Islay malt, to start, and for years it was the first building you saw when approaching the island (now most ferries dock at Port Askaig by Caol Ila), which created legions of new fans. Given the demand for Ardbeg and Lagavulin at the time, Port Ellen was like Stitzel-Weller Bourbon.

Brora was the clear insider favorite. The critical darling. Delicate and nuanced, it wasn’t the loudest voice in the room. It wouldn’t immediately wow you, or jump out of the glass the way that Port Ellen did, but once you got to know Brora there was no turning back. That waxy, lemony viscosity was unparalleled by any other malt.

Rosebank always played third fiddle to Port Ellen and Brora, much in the same way that Wild Turkey is outshined by the consumer love for Buffalo Trace and Heaven Hill today. But for the true whiskey diehards, the Kickin’ Chicken is still tops on many a list out there. The same holds true for Rosebank.

In order to learn about single malt back then, you still had to read books. There weren’t thousands of blogs and social media posts like there are today, documenting every nuance of every bottle ever produced. If you wanted to learn about Scotch, you turned to Michael Jackson.

I absolutely devoured Michael Jackson’s Whisky: The Definitive World Guide from the moment I procured my copy. The way he wrote about whisky, as well as the distilleries he recommended, greatly shaped how I viewed the single malt landscape at the time, and guided me to the adoration I still keep for certain producers today.

Michael Jackson loved Rosebank. After its closure in 1993, he lamented: “If there was a God, Rosebank would be produced again.”

Sadly, Michael passed away in 2007 and was never able to see the rebirth of Rosebank, but it’s clear he spoke to the big man upstairs and pulled a few strings on our behalf. In 2017, the long-mothballed distillery was purchased by Ian Macleod—owners of GlenGoyne and Tamdhu distilleries—and a plan to restore Rosebank to its former glory was hatched.

I remember the first time I went out drinking in Glasgow, walking through the cold Finnieston streets with Michael Jackson’s words running through my head:

“Some great whisky pubs exist in Glasgow, and are well worth visiting for a tasting session. It is in places such as these that the seeker of those elusive Lowlanders will have the most success. The whiskey they are most likely to be looking for is the finest of all—Rosebank.”

Now to the question you’re likely asking yourself: If Rosebank is so amazing, why would Diageo decide to close one of its greatest distilleries? The answer is as uninspiring as the ultimate decision itself. It was about marketing rather than quality; tourism, more specifically.

When putting together its classic malt range, Diageo had to choose between its two core Lowlanders: Rosebank or Glenkinchie. According to Jackson: “Most people in the firm would have chosen Rosebank, but in marketing, image is all; Rosebank sat next to a disused canal and bridged a busy main road, while Glenkinchie lay in a pretty farmland, with more tourist appeal.”

Soon after, Diageo decided one Lowland distillery was more than enough, and the distillery was shut down for good.

Having had my fair share of Rosebank over the years, including the upcoming thirty year old release from new owners Ian Macleod (who bought back the remaining original stocks), I’m here to answer another burning question: What exactly makes Rosebank so good?

In one word: drinkability.

To elaborate on that, Rosebank’s beauty is similar to that of an old Midleton Irish Whiskey: its soft, fruity, golden-grained character warming your palate, passing supple on its way across your tongue, and leaving your taste buds with hedonistic notes of sweet barley, buttery biscuits, heather, and vanilla. It’s the ultimate session whisky; an elixir perfectly suited to the Glasgow pub experience I aspired to so many years ago. It’s Scotland in a bottle. It is the liquid essence of what makes drinking Scotch whisky so much fun.

Are there plenty of other, less-expensive, similarly-flavored whiskies on the market that won’t cost thousands of dollars for a single bottle? Of course, there are.

But they’re not Rosebank.

And given how little Rosebank is left on the market right now, those few remaining experiences come at a premium. It’s no different than a Rolling Stones concert in 2021. Mick Jagger only has so many shows left in him (and Charlie Watts is already out of the next tour), so if you want a chance to experience the magic before it’s gone forever, now’s the time.

Granted, there will be more Rosebank in the future, but I might very well be dead before it hits 30 years again.

We’re getting six bottles of the new Ian Macleod Rosebank 30 year into stock later this week, and I’m hoping they all find the right home. Since I know Mr. Jackson is up there watching out for his favorite whisky, I’m sure they will.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Tomorrow With Patric Richardson

Upon reviewing his book Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore, the Washington Post wrote about Patric Richardson: “One would be very fortunate, I think, to be Richardson’s friend or neighbor, share his optimism and joy in life’s seemingly small things.”

That’s exactly how I felt while reading Patric’s book, and later while watching his show on the Discovery Channel. The man simply exudes cheer. I could watch him wash clothes all day long and feel incredibly positive while doing so.

Why should any of you booze fans care about Laundry Love, the new bestseller that shot to the top of the Amazon charts after Kelly Ripa went gaga for it on the air? Because there’s a lot of alcohol involved.

First off, you’ll never look at vodka the same way again once you realize what it can do for your clothes.

Second, there’s not a wine professional out there who hasn’t swirled and spit at a Bordeaux tasting, accidentally spraying their favorite garment with the blowback. Patric can tell you how to take those red dots right out.

Third, Patric is from Kentucky and he LOVES Bourbon. So we’re gonna talk about that tomorrow as well.

But, most importantly, if you even remotely care about your clothes and how you look, Patric’s book can save you a fortune in dry cleaning bills. Speaking with him yesterday afternoon, I learned that California’s regulation of dry cleaning chemicals results in higher fees, so I’m thrilled to be doing some of this on my own now.

“Now you can use that money to buy more clothes!” he told me with a huge smile.

Join us at 4 PM tomorrow over at @missionliquor on Instagram to hear more from Patric. You won’t want to miss it.

-David Driscoll